Recently I returned from a trip to Paris and was able to spend a while wandering around Père Lachaise Cemetery. Covering over 100 acres and one million internments since its inception, it is the largest cemetery within central Paris. I had hoped to spend the entire day wandering, but unfortunately rain forced me to leave early.

The West Toronto Photography Group on Meetup.com has a wide range of workshops, hosted by Phil Sutherland. On May 18th they had another installment of the Art & Form Posing Series, this time featuring Jenna L. She is a former ballerina and the posing ability of dancers never ceases to amaze me.

One of the thematic elements in this workshop used a long swath of red fabric to wrap the model. The fabric then stretched off to the sides. A few of my favourite images follow.

High Key setup with a light to the left of the photographer at about a 45 degree angle. We were also running a smoke machine to add a 'hazy' filter.

Lights on either side and slightly behind the model with a light to the front far left at a rather sever angle. The effect really uses light and shadow to highlight the pose.

The very first Royal Brawl Invitational Tournament was held this past weekend at the Centennial Arena in Guelph. Hosted by the Royal City Roller Girls, this WFTDA sanction event featured some fantastic flat track derby over 2 days.

The Death Track Dolls looked to cement their place at the top of the league standings when they faced off against the Smoke City Bandits, while the Chicks Ahoy did battle with the Gore Gore Roller Girls at the Bunker.

Smoke Cities Bandit jammer Titmouse battles her way through the Death Track Dolls blockers

Recently I decided to try my hand at shooting a few rolls at a ToRD match at the Bunker. The lighting setups are better suited to using strobes of some sort. I had a few rolls of Ilford Delta 3200 that I wanted to try out. I was rather surprised by the results. The action shots were blurry as one might expect when using a manual focus camera, but they were interesting.

Mr Whistler & The Derby Nerd commenting on the bout. Taken over the cameraman's right shoulder.

Hasselblad 500C/M, 150mm Sonnar f/4, Ilford Delta 3200 B&W film.

I decided the best way to curate the images I did like was an instagram account. My main instagram account will continue to be a wide variety of images I capture, but this account will only be Roller Derby images taken with a film camera. I will be accepting contributions from other photographers if they wish to provide images but currently it will be only me posting.

The account is Derby On Film. There is not set schedule as to when images will be posted. It generally takes 2-3 weeks to get the film back and then I have to scan and curate the images.

I am open to making prints of any of my images but I have never done a print directly from film. That would be a fun experiment.

I took an old medium format film camera with me to Paris this December and carried it for several of the days I was wandering about. While shooting with it was a much different experience than carrying a DSLR, it wasn't until the film was processed that the difference also showed greatly in the results.

Another Labour Day weekend comes and goes and with it, a fantastic weekend at FanExpo Toronto. I spent a bit of time attending a few Q&A panels but the bulk of each day was just wandering through the vendor floor taking pictures of some amazing cosplay!

Tri-City Roller Derby hosted their 2nd Annual Beaver Fever Tournament May 13-15, 2016. This 3 day, 13 game tournament featured sanctioned WFTDA action as well as some other wonderful surprises.

I was fortunate to be able to shoot track-side for the weekend and managed to capture some wonderful moments.

As Facebook doesn't provide a good way to present a group of galleries, and I had felt segmenting each game into its own album would allow easier sharing, here is a complete list of the albums I've posted. Feel free to tag and share. I do ask that you provide attribution if sharing off Facebook. For example, when sharing to Instagram, please tag any image shares with my instagram handle @pdvphotography. For other websites, linking back to this page is preferred. Thank-you.

For many years I've used Flickr to post and share images. After finding a fair number of flickr images being embedded within a website promoting porn, I'm going to remove any images that aren't Roller Derby or Comic Conventions.

I'll continue posting images for Roller Derby, but I'll be posting those same images to Facebook via my page.

As for other images, they'll all be posted here, with the odd posting to Facebook or Instagram for promotional purposes. While I still like Flickr, the lack of integration with other sites is a problem for me at this time.

The live online gala was attended by photography fans around the globe who logged on to see the climax of the industry's most important event for black and white photography.

The awards international Jury included captains of the industry from The Royal Photographic Society, FoMu Fotomuseum, Aeroplastics Contemporary, Torch Gallery, Stockholm City Museum to Fratelli Alinari in Florence who honored Spider Fellows with 298 coveted title awards and 957 nominees in 14 categories.

"It is an incredible achievement to be selected among the best from the 8,508 entries from 73 countries that we received this year," said Basil O'Brien, the awards Creative Director. "Paul DeVisser's "Ballerina" an exceptional image entered in the Fine Art category, represents black and white photography at its finest, and we're pleased to present him with the title of Nominee."

BLACK AND WHITE SPIDER AWARDS is the leading international award honoring excellence in black and white photography. This celebrated event shines a spotlight on the best professional and amateur photographers worldwide and honors the finest images with the highest achievements in black and white photography.

On Saturday, Sept 13th, The Dark Side Studio hosted the Gala Show for Spontaneous Order II, a workshop where a group of dancers gather to create and learn a choreography over 3 days. This intensive workshop produces a eclectic dance number that is the result of collaboration among differing minds and dance styles.

Sahra DeRoy & Victoria Dances

The evening featured some solo performances from participants in the workshop as well as the Lavish student troupe and some special guests. Audra Simmons and Heather Labonté also delighted us with a duet.

I'm a member of several meetup groups dedicated to photography, some of which put on workshops. The other night I attended a workshop on Light & Ink Master Lighting Class, hosted by PRO Photo Studio Workshops. Workshops such as these are a great way to learn and push your knowledge of studio light setups. You also gain valuable experience interacting with a model to work towards getting the best images possible.

The model for Light & Ink Master Lighting Class was Theresa Manchester. She was simply wonderful to work with, I cannot recommend her highly enough. Very professional, intuitive,

We worked through some different light setups with a mix of low-key and high-key thrown in.

model: Theresa Manchester

A typical low-key setup using a soft box on the near right, with two strip on the left/right to add fill along the edges.

So after 4 days of wandering the halls of the Metro Convention Centre marveling at the exhibits, displays of artwork and the fantastic cosplay, I finally have the time to go through and curate some of the images.

Every convention I attend I am astounded by the creativity, skill and dedication of the cosplayers who attend.